Institutional Interpreters’ Subjectivity Through Evaluative Shifts: A Corpus-Based Study on C-E Simultaneous Interpreting at Government Press Conferences

The appraisal system under systemic functional linguistics is widely recognized as a useful tool for researchers to examine the subjectivity of translators and interpreters. This study investigates how conference interpreters exhibit their subjectivity through evaluative shifts in C-E simultaneous interpreting in the 2022 Foreign Minister’s Press Conference based on a statistical analysis with a self-built appraisal meaning corpus, and an examination of the interpreter’s re-instantiation process. The study reveals major patterns of evaluative shifts, including omission in three categories (denial, counter-expectation and intensification of process), addition in two categories (tenacity and pronouncing) and substitution of intensification of process with intensification of quality. The adjustments made by the interpreter on the coupling across strata and across systems as well as the degree of commitment for evaluative resources result in evaluative shifts of different types in the target speech, a process which unveils institutional interpreters’ subjectivity featuring their individualized reading of meaning potentials in the source speech, their institutional alignment, as well as their proactive engagement in preserving China’s global image and national interests.